Recently i was having a chat with ferni about weapon damage and we were discussing at one point the affect of strength upon damage done per hit. I had assumed that up to this point this was how the damage was done. Dice are rolled, and then (assuming a hit is made) strength is added to the damage rolled. This would imply that a +4 strength bonus would have a 2 higher minimum/maximum damage than a +2 strength character.

However, in this discussion it was discovered that despite the fact i had a +4 modifier and ferni a +2 we hit exactly the same damage on a vat spear. My first question is why? Do certain weapons have unchangeable maximum damages that can never be bypassed? if so, we do i not have a 2 higher minimum damage? Is this a bug because bruce infact has 26 strength? Is damage not calculated like this? I am a little confused here.

yes, and indeed that was my understanding. However both ferni (+2) strength and myself (+4) strength, hit 16-21 with vat spears. This would then imply that this weapon is either an exception, or this chain of thinking does not take into account all factors.

Last edited by Swampy on Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:15 am; edited 1 time in total_________________From mud we come, to mud we return...

This morning i experimented with using a character with no modifier on a vat spear.
Experiment (0) hit 12-17.
Bruce +4 should hit 16-21. Yeah, pretty much right.
Experiment (+2) 14-19. OK, once again what you'd expect.

However, when i asked ferni about what damage he was getting he replied that on a +2 modifier he was getting 16-21, the same damage as bruce was getting with a +4.
Now, i am going to assume that ferni know's what he's talking about, in that case how does ferni's +2 act as a +4 but experiment's does not? Possibly it is to do with the fact experiment is lvl 1, with 20% prof in pole, and ferni is lvl 15 with 78% or so. It could be argued that this difference accounts for the extra 2 minimum/maximum damage. In that case why is there not some difference between bruce and ferni, given the fact that bruce is 9 levels higher, and has 100% prof in pole? AND a +4 strength modifier. It has been suggested that perhaps weapons have a damage cap outside their maximum damage, that once it is reached, the weapon will NEVER do more damage than what it is capped at. But seriously, what is going on here?

Examining the code, the calculation of weapon damage is convoluted and short-circuited by many factors but in simple terms, the amount of damage you do is dependent on the dice of the weapon and the STR BONUS of the attacker.

Actually getting to do damage to a victim depends on your THACO and AC initially, but assuming you can take a swipe, there is little else to it.

There are a LOT of dice rolls (and re-rolls) in the calculations however that may make direct comparison (he got, I got ...) a little more problematic.

Further testing has shown that a +2 modifier does work as a +2 modifier regardless of level and proficancy. Thank you to ferni for retesting this, and thank you to wonko for putting up with me and for re-examining a complex bit of code.

Damage (simply) is calculated thus, dice are rolled, strength is added. There are other factors affecting how good your dice rolls are, and whether you hit, but maximum and minimum damage are calculated by the best and worst possible rolls of the dice plus your strength.